James Franco Ponders ‘Prometheus’

byJames FurbushonJune 11, 2012

“Everyone wants to examine the unanswered questions about origins — why the robot is so evil and how this story links to the later films — but I wonder why every character in this film is such a dick.” — James Franco, astutely talking about Ridley Scott’s new movie.

And, EVEN BETTER: “I don’t know much about Scientology except for the abridged version I saw on South Park, but the origin story in Prometheus reminded me of that.”

The shame of the movie is it’s an enjoyable space opera that falls short of being a great science fiction epic. The movie hints, implies and dances around several heady topics such as the nature of human creation; but, like writer Damon Lindelof’s Lost, the movie confuses ambiguity for substance.

While not every movie needs to answer the questions it raises, Prometheus would have benefited from a few answers. Is it so much to demand to know why the black goo reacts differently to different people? Or what event caused the Space Jockeys to foresake humans so many years ago? Or why Guy Pearce showed up in bad old man make-up for no discernible reason?

Even though Prometheus clocked in at two hours, it could have benefited from an additional 20 minutes of exposition or so.